


An Abyss Between the Blinds

by Schokoshrimp



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Food, Hallucinations, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Psychological, Season 1, lots of eating, violence against animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schokoshrimp/pseuds/Schokoshrimp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Will sees another house at the other end of the field, an exact copy of his own except for a red light burning in a window, he calls Hannibal to dispel his apparent hallucination. But Hannibal's intentions are muddled and Will's brain struggles to keep up with reality while time seems to repeat itself.</p><p>Set somewhere near the end of season one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Abyss Between the Blinds

_Only_  
 _There is shadow under this red rock,_  
 _(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_  
 _And I will show you something different from either_  
 _Your shadow at morning striding behind you_  
 _Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_  
 _I will show you fear in a handful of dust._

 -- T.S. Eliot: "The Waste Land" 

 

 

 

 

Will sits. A red light, glowing faintly atop the waves of scrubby grass outside his house, has found its place inside a window-frame. There is a lamp aglow behind that window, on a table, plugged into a socket. Someone living in that house so far away across the field has plugged it in, like the lamp at the very top of a ship's mast. A greeting. They are two captains passing each other on their little boats, tipping their hats in recognition on a warm night at sea.

Will sits still, watching the other house. He knows his phone is perched up on the bookshelf behind him. He gets up, backtracks calmly, the whole time focusing on the house in the distance. The phone makes the noise of a falling water droplet as he grabs it from its station. Peep toot peep peep toot peep toot peep, it sings—a familiar melody.

Some crackling. "Hello?" The voice is even more familiar and a bristle of comfort washes over Will's skin.

"Yes, hello, uh. Good evening. It's me. Sorry to bother you."

"You are never a bother, Will." The phone's static enhances Hannibal's sibilants. When Will closes his eyes he can hear a wizard riling up snakes."What can I do for you at this late hour?"

"Well, um. I know this might sound strange, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you could just answer a question with yes or no. Just yes or no."

"Of course. Ask away."

"Do I…" Will exhales in a puff. "Do I have neighbors?"

 

Will knows that it will take Hannibal about an hour to get here, so he resumes his position on his chair in front of the window. He's not sure why he feels pressured to stare at the other house without disruption—the only thing that might happen is for it to go away, which is what he actually wants. It would mean normalcy and normalcy is good. Still he can't keep his eyes off of it. With a flutter of nausea in his throat, he spends the time until Hannibal arrives perched on his chair.

When the doorbell finally rings, the sound shoots from his ears directly to the core of his bones. He flinches and shoots up. At the door he forces himself to turn his head and remove his eyes from the house—it is just as hard as it usually is to look someone directly into the eyes.

"Good evening, Will," Hannibal greets him, an amicable smile on his face. Will sees the scrutinizing gaze beneath it. "How are you?"

Will opens the door and steps aside to let Hannibal into his home. "Alright except for the… obvious."

"Hmhm." There is an ambiguity to Hannibal's voice that seems to neither judge nor empathize. He takes a few steps into the messy room and then waits courteously for Will's motioning arm to gesture him further into the house. Winston is lying in his way and Hannibal bends down to pet his head before stepping over a pile of pillows (for the dogs) to stand before the window. He stares right at the other house. At least Will assumes so, as he can only see Hannibal's back and his hazy reflection in the glass—the eyes staring not at their mirror image but at the red glower in the distance.

"Excuse my silence," Hannibal says the next moment, turning around. "It is rude of me. I just wanted to make sure that no building contractor had spontaneously acquired a neighboring premise and set up a house over night. This seems not to be the case, however."

Will tries to smile at Hannibal's good-hearted attempt at a joke, but fails. "So there's… there's nothing there? I can still see it. It's illuminating the back of your head right now."

"Illuminating? Does it have a light on its veranda?"

"No, it's behind one of the windows. A red lamp shining right across the field."

Hannibal seems to ponder that for a moment, then he steps forward and extends an arm. "Let us take a walk outside. It is best to face hallucinations head on. They might just vanish into thin air when you get too close, it is worth a try. Come."

Will lets himself be steered into the hallway, Hannibal's hand warm and utterly professional.

"So then, Will, while we walk…" Hannibal begins as they cross the threshold. "Tell me about what you associate with the color red."

 

It's still warm outside—about 70 degrees—the wind subtle but steady. The red light is the vanishing point of Will's perspective. They trod towards it like two lonely people steering their rowboat over a placid lake. He tells Hannibal everything he ever associated with the color red, and for Will Graham, associations come quickly. He talks about his father's favorite boat motor—varnished in red—that moved with the family whenever they did, the first one his dad had fixed. His first dog had streaks of red in his fur that Will used to comb with an old brush. He wants to go on about happy memories to somewhat stubbornly underline that this red light might be a sign of his subconscious reaching out to him on a friendly mission, but that's as far as he gets. After that he spurts blood and death and crime scene, Freddie Lounds' hair next to open chests and wounds and mouths and the sight of his own besplattered face in the mirror. "Good," Hannibal interjects from time to time as if Will was recounting his latest adventures with his dogs. After a while, gnats start attacking them and only when Hannibal lifts his hand to swat them away does Will realize that it had rested on his shoulder all along. It had become an agreeable extension of his body.

"Will," Hannibal grabs his attention. He doesn't remember for how long they have been walking. Maybe ten minutes, maybe an hour. The field is enormously vast. "We should stop here."

"But we're not there yet. It's just," he tilts his head, "over there."

"We are not getting any closer."

"How do you know that?"

Hannibal holds his arm again and turns them so that they face each other. Will's glasses have slid down his nose. Pushing them up would be too obvious, so he is forced to look directly at Hannibal. "Your expression tells me. Your eyes are locked on that same spot in the darkness: the red light, isn't it? They are fixed. No movement. It is not coming closer—we are simply walking into darkness, Will."

Will's hand starts shaking. He shoves it into his pocket. "Yeah, you're right. I should probably just ignore it. I can't deal with this kind of stuff right now, not outside of the cases. And it's harmless, isn't it? I'll just leave it there. New neighbors, that's nice." He attempts a smile.

"I don't want to alarm you, but I don't think we should treat this lightly. It is a heavy intrusion of your consciousness—and that close to your home, the very spaces in which you feel most save."

"Well then, what do you suggest we do, _Doctor Lecter_?"

Hannibal's face, outlined faintly in yellow on one side, in red on the other, slides into a half smile. "I suggest my own special therapy: a warm dinner, wine and good conversation."

" _Talking_."

"Yes, _talking_. That is, if you are willing to invite me into your home, of course."

"Well, yes. Then…" Will inhales deeply. The night air seems to expand around him, encasing him, shrinking him. "Let's go."

"Good. We will get to the cause of this hallucination, Will, I am sure. You have had much worse," Hannibal says as he turns to walk. Red appears on his face, as if it were not illuminated, but the color seeps through the skin from inside. Hannibal is already a few yards ahead before Will snaps to attention.

"That's the wrong way," he calls after him.

Hannibal halts in his pursuit of the red light. "We are walking toward your house."

"That's—that's the—Can you actually _see_ it?"

"We are walking toward your house, believe me. Your house with the little veranda and the old lightbulbs that cast a yellow glow. Your home, Will. You called it a boat on the sea. The place you feel most safe. Is that not right?"

"Yes, but _this_ ," he stares at the red glow, "is not it. We need to turn around." He does and really, there, snugly embedded in the field's waves, sits his house.

"Listen to me, Will. You are hallucinating. Your brain is tricking you. This is the way we came." Hannibal takes a step closer and points at the ground. "There are footsteps—our footsteps."

Will's eyebrows twitch, he bends to examine the ground as if bowing before the crushing power of the lamp far off in a window. There is certainly something there—indentations in the soil still parched from the long absence of rain. Small hollows are strewn over the earth, maybe made by human feet, maybe by animals, maybe by the wind.

"There are… yes," Will says. He doesn't hear himself talk clearly. He wants to bury his clammy hands in the ground, feel the sandy texture against his palms.

"Good." After a moment, "Let me lead you home, yes?"

Will lets himself be held by the elbow and moved along. He is suddenly hyper-aware of the earth beneath his feet and the sound it makes, like nails scratching over abrasive paper. A memory of schoolboys bullying the outsider kid into eating soil. A hand, overgrown with fungi, sticking out from it.

"Doctor Lecter?"

"Yes?" The hand still on the elbow.

"Is it far? I can't, well I _can_ see something, which is the wrong house, according to you, but I…"

"We are almost there, don't worry. Five minutes, and then I will prepare a warm dinner and we will talk. Just a little bit longer."

Hannibal must certainly realize that Will has started shaking by that time, his gaze flicking to the house, to his feet, to the parts of Hannibal's face that are not his eyes. Will nods instead of replying and looks at the house. A red dragon looms over the horizon.

 

In the entrance hall, uncertainty is still nipping at Will's stomach, but he tries not to let it show. Quite annoyingly, Hannibal insists on helping him out of his jacket (he isn't _that_ sick that he can't undress by himself), hanging it onto the hanger next to Will's only other two coats. Everything looks the same, but Will's guts contract in disbelief like a cowering dog. Still, even as they enter the living-room, it's all familiar. It even smells the same: of pine and dog with slight undertones of ground coffee. Smell is most closely connected with memory, which Will now experiences first hand and which makes his heart melt in his chest. Hannibal switches the lights on that immediately envelop his face like warm hands and illuminate the room in yellow. The white bookshelves are painted in vanilla and the gray door in brown. He is home, but the feeling of an intruding otherness lingers.

"Oh," Will murmurs as he exhales. Maybe he is a fragile little teacup after all. "I feel better." The dogs are sleeping. Behind him, Hannibal is a shadow as steady as the backrest of an armchair. "I'm home. Sorry for doubting you. This is the right house— _my_ house. You were right. Of course." He smiles feebly.

"No need to apologize. Although we need to handle this problem carefully—I don't think it can be easily dismissed only because you feel at ease as you have entered your home. But let us talk about that later on. Dinner first."

"Oh about that…" He is interrupted as two dogs come running around the corner by the couch. He pets them gladly. "I don't think there's anything in the fridge, except for… beer? Jam, toast and… pickles, I guess."

"More food for the dogs than for yourself, Will?" Hannibal jokes. "Well, I will look around the kitchen to see what I can do, if I may."

"Sure, go ahead."

Standing around awkwardly, Will busies himself with feeding his dogs, for whom he really has a whole cupboard stacked full with cans. As he pulls one out and cranks it open, his gaze involuntarily falls onto the window next to the pantry. His heart jumps for a moment, but the only light he sees is the yellow glow of his illuminated cheeks in his reflection. What a healthy looking face he has.

He smiles as he feels cold dog noses nudge the back of his legs. "Easy!" he hushes their eager yelps and, like the pied piper with a trail of children, he leads them over to the row of bowls.

"There is something utterly satisfying in the way dogs are so happy about the fulfillment of their carnal desires, don't you think?" Hannibal asks from the kitchen. Will has almost forgotten him.

He turns around and sees Hannibal with Will's dirty old apron slung around the torso, grating something. A lemon.

"Yes…" Will drawls, but is completely transfixed by the abundant arrangement of groceries sitting on the counter. There are different kinds of herbs, all richly green, butter, a sinkhole of flour, some potatoes and—like the stars of one of Hannibal's dearly beloved operas—two glistening fish fillets spread on a sheet of kleenex.

"Where the hell did you get this?" Will asks. "Did you bring food with you?"

"I didn't. I was surprised myself, especially since you spoke so belittlingly about the contents of your kitchen, but I found all of this in your fridge. Although I do have to admit that the dill is mere improvisation—you did not seem to have any parsley."

Will barks a laugh. "You found this," his hand sweeps out as if he wanted to swipe all the food off the counter, "in _my_ kitchen?"

"You must have bought it yourself, Will. Or do you have a secret admirer who sends you care packages instead of roses?"

"I—" There is something deeply indecent about that question—probably because both of them know that the only person constantly worried about Will's diet is Hannibal himself. Will shakes his head, rubbing his neck. "I don't know. Am I losing time again? Going on random shopping sprees that I can't remember?" It would be funny if it weren't so terrible.

"Your losing time is nothing new. It fits in with your hallucination of the house. One is your mind not correctly recognizing its own relation to time and space, and the other is your mind not recognizing the relation of objects situated in time and space towards itself."

"Reality is slipping from my grasp."

"Then again—reality is a concept that is very difficult to define."

" _Yes_ , but if we look further than all those solipsistic theses, I am real. You're real. The house outside"—he thinks of its red eyes boring into his chest, the grinning veranda, dark shrouds around the roof, his heart clenching into a fist—"isn't."

"You are convinced of your own existence, then you must also believe in the substantiality of your emotions." Hannibal dusts salt onto the fish fillets. "Tell me Will, what do you feel about that house?"

 

A plate with steaming food is gently placed down in front of Will. He smoothes out the wrinkled paper napkin that he is suddenly ashamed of.

"I never asked you what this actually is. It looks and smells fantastic, though, by the way."

"Sole Meunière," Hannibal says in one sharp, perfect breath. "Sole dredged in flour and milk with brown butter sauce and spring potatoes."

"Well, thank you. For cooking… _and_ taking your time."

"You are very welcome."

Hannibal takes a trip back into the kitchen to hang the apron on its rightful hanger and to grab a small dish with herbs in it on his way back.

"Parsley, for seasoning to your own tastes," he explains as he sets it down and seats himself opposite Will. "Bon appétit."

"Thank you. You… uh, too."

Will closes his mouth around the first bite, slowly pulling out the fork between his lips. He chews and god, does it taste good, so good it seems every tastebud is shivering in a _petit mort_.

They eat in silence for a while before Hannibal says after a sip of white wine, "The more I think about it, the less convincing I find it that you said you have no feelings concerning the house. Are you that afraid that your brain represses all associations with it?"

"Do you think that I'm lying to you?" Will asks sarcastically.

"Not that, no. I think that there is more to it. You are not the simple man you make yourself out to be."

Will puts down his fork. "I can't tell you. But what I _can_ say is that it is not gone completely. In the back of my mind it stands like a bad omen and I am waiting for doomsday."

"Would it help you to confirm the reality of the other house's non-existence by looking at the empty space with your own two eyes?" Hannibal asks.

"I…" Will contemplates for a moment. "Yes, I think so."

"Good, then we will take a look at it after dinner. Now finish your food."

Will nods, sprinkles more parsley on his fish and finishes it within a few bites. It takes Hannibal a little longer, while Will stares at his own spotless plate in slight embarrassment. After they have quickly cleaned up, they stand purposelessly in the middle of the room. Dread collects in Will's stomach. "Shall we take a look then?" Hannibal asks. It sounds like the harmless offer of a realtor showing a customer around.

Will swallows. He knows his own home. He knows where he is. There is nothing to be afraid of. "Yes."

Because the windows upstairs are bigger and the sight better, they ascend the stairs to the empty room on the first floor that Will does not use. It is the same room that in the other house bears home to the red lamp. As Will opens the door, a dog squeezes through his legs to lead their way inside. Her claws click quietly on the hardwood floor. Hannibal and Will take the first steps into the black box of the lightless room, where Will immediately reaches for the switch.

"Wait," Hannibal halts him. "You can see much better without the lights on."

"Right."

Will lowers his hand. He blinks to shovel the darkness from his eyes, but they keep filling up black each time he opens them. The clicking of the dog's paws has stopped a few feet in front of him next to the chimney and he hears her sniff something, loudly, as if there were a hundred dogs not one, in every corner of the room and above him and beneath him. Something clinks again. Holly barks.

"You have another lamp in here?" Hannibal asks, who seems to be much better at seeing in the dark. He must be referring to the one on the plastic stool next to the walls of the chimney.

"It's for the dogs, for when I do let them in here. They like it better when it's not completely dark. It's a nightlight if you will."

"You are a great example of dog owners assimilating to their dogs over time, Will. Always so afraid of the dark. But don't worry; we will go down into the light once we are finished here."

"I am not afraid, Doctor Lecter, I just want to get this over with."

As emphasis, Will takes a step forward toward the window. From what he can see, behind its glass, the world is just as dark as inside here. There might be no wall at all. He might take a step, take another step, another, another, another, and fall. But he doesn't fall, because there is Hannibal's hand  on his shoulder, and so, together, they walk until they are standing in front of the glass pane.

"What do you see?" Hannibal asks quietly.

'Nothing' Will is about to say. Seeing nothing at all is better than seeing everything with the terrible truth of a superabundant something. But then he doesn't say that. His eyelids must have succeeded at getting some of the darkness out, as he now feels a greenish static rank through his pupils. Will has always hated seeing in the dark—because of that green, that reality-turned-into-swamp.

"I see… my window."

"And behind your window?"

"I see the field." He sees it barely, like an old copperplate print covered in moss.

"What color does it have?"

Will strains, strains hard to see it, to make out between the abounding leaves of his eye-swamp the faint glimmer of red leaking from another bleeding house. No blood. No red. No fear. The fist of Will's heart flattens out its fingers.

"Green. Brown. The black of the street."

"A house?"

"There is no other house. There has never been another house and there is no red light in mine. I know… what's real."

"Good." Hannibal's hand gives his shoulder a squeeze. "But what is more important, Will, is your belief in the competence of your mind's reception. How do you feel about what you're seeing?"

"I feel fine." Will stares outside at the idyllic field as the scratching of the dog's claws starts up again. "I feel stable. Thank you. It is like there was a, a dam in the center of my skull and you just broke it down to get the water flowing again. There is— _Holly_!" The dog's scratching has turned into a low whimper and then a yelp. "Holly, pshhht," Will reprimands the dog. "Sorry. She doesn't like it when it's dark. I'll just turn on the light."

"I was about to suggest that anyway. Now that we have re-established your sense of reality, in order to keep it, it is vital to make sure that you are comfortable."

Nodding, Will steps over to the dog and gently pries her from the lamp. She barks until Will grabs the back of her neck in an angry hold and uses his other hand to search for the light switch that sits somewhere on the lamp's cable. His fingers run along the length of it, following the edge of the windowsill. He has to crouch in a hunch to keep his hold on both the dog and the cable so that his face ends up hanging directly above the lamp. Through the hole in its glass cocoon he can see the bulb like a water bubble at the bottom of a lake. What color does the glass have again? It has been ages since he last came into this room. Then his fingers stop on the slight swelling in the cable: the switch. Holly yelps once more and he shushes her.

"Got it," he says to Hannibal and flips the switch.

The lamp illuminates as a second sun burning like the mirror image of Will's own eye, glaring back at him. He thinks he can feel his pupil cramping up. His eyelids close. The light blares through them, red. Red. His eyelids' blood dyes it red. Is it his blood? The lampshade, the bulb? Is it the light itself? It's leaking, gushing, streaming, as light, as liquid. His own blood. Someone's blood. _Will, Will, Will._ He isn't a dog although someone is calling him as such. Is that pelt beneath the tips of his fingers? Is it warm? It is warm. The pelt is howling. He can feel it breathing in his hand, this weird organism, breathing while there is blood blooming everywhere. He wants to open his eyes, but they are shut, it's like he's sunk inside a car into a red lake and the windows won't roll down and he can't let more red water in and he can't breathe and he can't escape. He needs to hold onto something, the need clenches him and so he clenches, too, the thing beneath his fingertips. Pelt feels weird under pressure, bristly like a brush. Skin swells. Now there's bone beneath the plump sack of blood that is squealing. Is it the sound of rolling down the windows to let water flood the insides and drown him? The sound is so piercing, so desperate, but he can't concentrate, only feel, the lack of his breath and the firm hold he has of warm wet pelt.

He hears his own last breaths rattle like an empty spray can, then darkness falls.

 

And the light is switched back on.

"Apologies," Hannibal says as he juggles two plates of food into the room. "I am still not perfectly acquainted with this house. I had meant to turn off the light in the kitchen, not in here."

"That's fine. If you visited more often you wouldn't have these kinds of complications." Will fingers the edge of the expensive cloth napkin as he eyes the fish on the plates.

Hannibal smiles sheepishly. "I am taking that as an invitation."

"It was very much intended as one," Will says as Hannibal places one plate on the table from behind of him. Then he proceeds to his own seat opposite Will. The flames of the candelabra between them dance in the reflection of Will's wineglass and he is hypnotized by them for an instance, watching them licking at his wine. He can't remember ever having had such a fancy meal inside his own house before. It doesn't seem to stage the feast well, like the dirty hand of a mechanic holding an exquisite little sculpture. "Well, anyway. What are we having tonight?"

"Sole Meunière. Sole dredged in flour and milk with brown butter sauce and spring potatoes."

"That sounds amazing. Thank you."

"I hope the taste will live up to your expectations. Oh…" Hannibal's face looks as if he has suddenly bitten onto something very bitter. "I forgot the parsley in the kitchen. I will bring it immediately. How rude of me."

"You're never rude, Doctor Lecter."

Hannibal nods his head dismissively and gets up to retrieve the parsley from the kitchen. As he returns he is holding a small porcelain dish in his hand, for which he then tries to find a spot between the bouquets of flowers and arrangements of fruit that adorn Will's too narrow table, whose rugged wood is hidden beneath an embroidered tablecloth. He finally places it right next to Will's plate.

"An unfortunate spot, I am afraid," Hannibal comments, before sitting down and wishing Will a 'bon appétit'. Will echoes him, albeit somewhat incompetently, and they start eating.

Hannibal takes a sip of red wine, then begins, "When I asked you about how you feel toward the other house, your answer seemed a little ill-fitted. The more I think about it, the less convincing it seems. Like a branded watch from a street market whose fake gold lacquer only wears off after a few days of use."

Will scoffs. "If I convinced _you_ to buy a gold watch from a street market, I must surely be a great salesman."

"Oh, that you are." Hannibal smiles minimalistically over the edge of his wineglass, then takes another sip. "But the ability of selling just about anything may affect you negatively. What happens when all of those greedy customers come back with their rubbed-off watches? And more importantly, you might be finding yourself sitting at a workstation in your filthy factory, looking at a piece of watch-shaped nickel, thinking: Where did all my gold go?"

"Wonderful. Now I am an underpaid worker in a watch-forging factory. How flattering your metaphors are tonight, Doctor Lecter…"

Hannibal grants him another smile. A pause ensues, which they both use for a few bites of the fish.

"Well, anyway," Will continues. "If you want me to talk more about the house, then I have a request for you, too. Because we are just having conversations, you can answer my questions just as well as I answer yours. _Therapy_ is unidirectional, but this… this can go in all kinds of directions, right?"

"Certainly. Ask away."

It takes a moment until Will has untangled his thoughts into a ribbon of coherent sentences. "Pure empathy," he begins. "It's what I have. You keep repeating that and you're right, absolutely right. There are… a lot of details I have discerned about you during our _conversations_ , certain preferences, interests, attitudes. But I have been trying to find out why you do any of this— _any_ of this: the wine, the cooking, the talks, the driving-up-at-night-to-check-for-ghost-neighbors. It is not just because you, uh, like me." Will awkwardly tugs at his napkin, ashamed that he is feeling embarrassment discussing a very obvious friendship. "You also 'like' Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford and yet you are friendly but much more… reluctant toward them. I know, I mean, there is a way of thinking that we both share that neither of them have—the way that permits this conversation to be both interesting and intimidating, at least to me—but I can… _feel_ that there is more to it. I am holding my hands into the clear surf of the ocean, but your intentions are evading me like the silver fish slipping through my fingers whenever I close my fists. So." Will clears his throat. "The question is simply: _Why_?"

Hannibal nods curtly, places his knife and fork at the edge of his plate, and discreetly wipes his hands on his napkin. It seems like he is launching into a long response, but then he says, "A simple question deserves a simple answer: Because of your gold, Will."

At that moment his eyes glide upward like a slug ascending a glass pane—sticky—to search and hold Will's gaze. In a moment of anguish Will's lips curl as he watches Hannibal's face like a Kabuki mask—a haunting thing whose lines seem to be cut by an old, rusty blade. He releases a breath and Hannibal's eyes shine warmly in the candle light. "Do elaborate," Will says.

"I do not need to." With a knowing smile on his lips, Hannibal's gaze slips onto Will's chest and as if he had pushed a button in Will's skin with his eyes, something in Will's chest starts rumbling. It sounds like the noise an electric kettle makes just before the water begins to boil. Will clutches his chest frantically, shoves his hand into one of the holes between the buttons of his flannel to touch his skin. He winces. Hot. He jerks his hand out again and _plat, plat, plat,_ three big drops of liquid gold fall onto the tablecloth. His hand burns, blazing.

"We should finish eating," Hannibal says. "And you promised to tell me about your _real_ feelings toward the red house."

Will gasps, staring back down at his chest where gold keeps oozing.

Hannibal's voice becomes more demanding. "Will. We are not finished yet."

But Will, still trying to keep the gold from falling, is strangled by the rumbling in his chest that travels as vibration through his body and shakes him. From the noise of water boiling the sound now evolves to the low rattle of a train approaching through a tunnel, the anticipation of its squeaking brakes, thin wheels that could cut arms better than actual knifes. Then a whine. High and helpless. Will's eyes fly open.

"Did you hear that?" he asks.

"Your gold?"

"No," Will breathes. He grinds his teeth and, clutching the table's edge, pushes himself up. Hannibal eyes him warily. "I heard something."

There it is again. A cry. Will looks down, because he mistakes it for the squeak of the chair, but it sounds too far off for that. As the noise reiterates he stumbles after it, his eyes searching the corners of the room blindly, like a hand feeling around in an empty box.

"Where are you going, Will?"

"Nowhere. Just checking something."

In his blind pursuit, Will hears Hannibal get up and follow him with quiet steps. He is an animal approached cautiously because it might lash out. But he is not crazy. He is somewhere, it is sometime, his name is Will Graham and he can hear a voice and the faint sound of scratching claws from the chimney of his living room. Slowly, he lays the side of his face against the hollow wall. The noise grows louder, just as it should. He listens as if with a shell pressed to his ear, and he hears and recognizes now that the whines are the mixed voices of a dog and a man. Maybe he knows the voices, but he isn't sure. What he is sure of, is the pain. The pain of both man and dog. They sound similar. But the sounds of pain that people make are nowhere near as haunting as the broken-hearted terror of a dog being hurt by its owner. The betrayed trust. He needs to make it stop. Stop now.

His hands ball into fists as he pushes himself off the wall and lunges for the set of tools that lie on a sideboard, grabs a hammer, and throws himself hammer first against the wall. The hammer bounces back, but he immediately brings it down again against the ruthless stones. Again. He inhales between each blow, can feel the tight circle of his throat, before his arm vibrates again from the impact of metal on stone. Hhhhh, he goes. Again. Again. Then finally, a crumble, his arm flies through the hole into the chimney. He loses his grip on the hammer and it falls to the ground with a hollow clank. In the silence that follows Will hears only his own breath and the memory of the dog's panic. It is a memory. He knows it's a memory and that there is no dog in the chimney. (No hallucination.)

Carefully, he draws his arm back out of the hole, wincing as he sees the blood the rugged stones have drawn. Like teeth.

"Will?"

Will turns around and sees Hannibal standing near the door.

"Yeah, I was just… There was an animal in here."

Hannibal nods slowly but lets a moment go by before speaking. Will feels the heat of embarrassment lighting up his neck. It was a mistake, is all. "I was just in the next room," Hannibal says finally. "I would have been glad to help you."

"Oh, no, that's… fine. It was better doing that, doing that alone. And the animal… it got out anyway."

Hannibal's gaze is so doubtful that Will shrinks beneath it. Hannibal mustn't think he is crazy. Of all people, he wants Hannibal to believe in his sanity. "I made a bit of a mess, sorry," Will adds as he sees the rubble on his floor.

Hannibal smiles slightly. "What kind of animal was it?"

"I think… it was a dog. It _was_ a dog." There was a dog. He heard it.

"Where is it now?"

"By the time I'd knocked a hole in the chimney I think it had… snuck out between my legs."

Hannibal nods his head, but Will can still see the doubt in his eyes. "So it did get out. That is the most important thing."

"Yeah…" Will's mind is reeling. He doesn't want to think about the dog. He doesn't want to think about madness, doesn't want Hannibal interrogating him about it. And the house… He knows what subject will come up if he leaves the silence unfilled. He doesn't want that, either. Before he manages to find a comprehensible thought, Hannibal has approached him. He halts directly in front of Will—too close. Usually Hannibal is conscious of other people's personal space and especially of Will's high fence. Now he stands so near that if Will were to fall forward, Hannibal would not need to reach out his hands to catch him. Maybe Hannibal thinks he _is_ going to fall, but he isn't. He is not weak. He is not mad. But he doesn't have proof.

"Why are you here?" Will asks, then rephrases, "Why are you _still_ here?" It's rude and he knows it, but he needs to speak in order to keep Hannibal's thoughts from smothering him with worry.

"We were just eating. You called me and then I made dinner. We were having a conversation before you heard something in your chimney. I came after you to see if I could help you or, if necessary, protect you."

"I don't need protection," Will growls.

"Maybe I am not the best person to protect you from the one you need to be protected from."

 _Me. He means me_ , Will thinks. Hannibal must forget. He mustn't consider it. "I don't need it."

Hannibal smiles and his voice drops to just about a whisper—the wizard speaking spells as mere sound to crawl in Will's ears. "That is for you yourself to decide. I am not your therapist and you are not my patient. Your madness you need to decipher on your own…"

The word 'madness' shoots directly into Will's throat as well as his brain. He doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to know. He needs to purge the very thought in Hannibal's brain. "No," he mumbles. "I'm not. Not your patient." Hannibal's face has come closer. The eyes, huge and hooded, fill out the center of his vision. He feels hypnotized. A serpent charmed by madness into a frenzy. Whose madness?, he thinks. But then he doesn't think because he doesn't want Hannibal to think, either. He holds his breath. The frenzy sizzles out of his lips as his mouth touches Hannibal's. He grabs Hannibal's shoulders to hold him still, or maybe just to hold on.

 

Hannibal's lips smack together once, delicately, before he lifts the dainty napkin to his mouth to dab at its corners. The napkin comes away clean and paisley-patterned. The tip of his tongue appears briefly between his lips, then he smiles and inclines his head. "That was more than exquisite, Will."

Will reciprocates the smile. "Thanks. Although my cooking skills are still far behind yours."

"I beg to differ. Where did you get the recipe, if I may ask? After all it is a french dish."

"A friend of my mom's was french. They used to get me to cook with them because I, well, didn't go out to meet kids my age. And Sole Meunière is an easy enough dish. Nothing too complicated. They taught me to only buy spring potatoes and that parsley is the best herb to complement the buttery flavor. It's not talent for cooking, but I guess it's passable imitation."

"If you have learned more recipes from your mother's friend, I would be delighted to try those, as well."

"We'll see what I can do."

Will savors the moment of mutual enjoyment, the promise of many dinners to come. The expensive decoration on his kitchen table still looks slightly alien in his cluttered room, but he is getting used to it. In fact, his slapdash furniture, the ceiling with grease stains over the oven, the unmatching dishes in the glass cupboards, make a nice husk around the immaculate perfection of this dinner table. Hannibal would call it 'contrasting themes'.

"But Will," Hannibal says, "all through dinner, you have avoided replying to my question."

"Because you are obsessed. I don't feel like fueling your obsession, Hannibal."

"Obsessed with what? The house? Your hallucination of the house?"

Will smiles, lifts the napkin from his lap to fold it and sticks it beneath the edge of his plate. "With me."

"Obsession is a form of madness, don't you think? The brain loses the ability to differentiate the important from the unimportant while discarding any sense of boundaries. It is closely linked to hatred. Or love. Do you think that applies to me?"

Will quirks an eyebrow. "At least one of the two." He pushes his chair away from the table and gets up. With too much clatter he starts to collect the dishes. "There's a reason why I'm not telling you what my deduction of the red house is."

Hannibal stands up, too, to help Will with cleaning, but is gently rebuffed. "That reason being…?" he asks.

"Have you ever seen a cartoon?"

Hannibal's eyebrows twitch. "No…"

"Hadn't expected you to. I used to watch them with my dad when I was young and one… you could say 'trope' has stuck with me. Sometimes it happens that characters are walking over the edge of something like a roof and are so lost in thought that they don't realize they have already passed its edge. They don't stumble and fall because their brain has not registered any change; for them the ground is still there. And as long as they are convinced of that, they won't fall. But the moment always comes, when they look down and realize that there is no ground beneath their feet. And then fall." Will halts on his path to the kitchen, looking over his shoulder back at Hannibal. "I'm afraid that when I tell you about it, I will fall, too."

"I will not let—"

"Don't. Hannibal. Those are just empty words."

"I want to help you. You know that, Will."

Will turns and heads for the kitchen, where he dumps the dishes into the sink. He stands there alone for a moment, breathing, his gaze falling on his reflection in the window above the counter. In the illuminated darkness, all windows become mirrors. He tears himself away from his own eyes and returns to the living room. Hannibal is waiting diligently.

"I think I can show you," Will says. "We should go upstairs."

"Of course." Hannibal's voice sounds soft and his feet, too, make almost no sound as he follows Will to the stairs, but when Will turns after a corner in the hallway he catches Hannibal's eyes in a window. They reflect no light.

On top of the stairs, the two of them stand in front of the closed door to the empty room. Will thinks he knows what's in there but doesn't dare think the thought to completion lest the edge of the roof might be behind him, and he will fall. Hannibal says he will catch him, but Will isn't sure if Hannibal wouldn't watch in rapture as he becomes a small dot in the darkness, and then jump after him himself.

Alright now. Swiftly, Will lays his hand on the doorknob. He fingers its rough wood, his heart beating loudly as if to remind him of its existence, then he turns and opens the door.

Inside is darkness, but darkness less thick than Will is used to. (Or his eyes have improved.) He steps fully into the room, turning to close the door behind Hannibal, terrified of what he expects to lie in the middle of the room. At first, Hannibal's face doesn't betray them, only when he sees _it_ his eyes narrow and his mouth hardens before trembling and stretching into a smile that reveals his misshapen teeth. But the it, the it that Will purposefully turned his back to, is now, as he makes for the switch, like a blind spot in his vision. Will's brain wants to protect itself, although he knows. Although he has figured it all out.

The light comes on. He looks at Hannibal, still rapt, then, with sheer force, at the it. His brain is losing against itself. It makes the it out to be a she, to be his dog, to be Holly. She is lying on her side, legs sprawled. Gouges line her sides looking like a new fur pattern, if it weren't for the obvious strips of skin hanging loose. Will's stomach clenches. The blood pool is large. It's so dark it looks like a hole in the ground. There are footsteps leading away from it, round, long ones. Like from socks. The soles of his feet feel warm, his brain feels big, too big for his head. He waits for the floor to vanish. Any moment now. Any moment. Now. Any... Now. Now. No—

"You should take off your socks, Will; they are dirty."

Will opens his eyes and the image of his dead dog comes back like a deluge. "Oh yeah. You're right." He lifts one foot to pull the red, warm-wet thing from his foot. Then he lifts the other to do the same. He drops the socks on the floor where they land with a smack.

"That's better," Hannibal says before making his way over to Holly and bending down to rake his fingers through her torn pelt. Will wants to throw up, but keeps the urge low—he is still standing on his feet, the floor still there. It's fine. Hannibal's face looks utterly lugubrious, so sincere and heartfelt that tears prick at Will's eyes. "I know what this means," Will says, quietly. "I know what it means that this house is red, that I saw the lamp glare red at my face."

"Yes?"

Will closes the distance to his dog and kneels next to Hannibal. "Will the floor vanish when I tell you?"

Hannibal turns his face and lifts both hands to hold Will's shoulders firmly. Whatever Hannibal is about to say is lost to Will as he gets swallowed up by eyes, eyes he has avoided for months, that now see far too much, that look at him, into him, and Will realizes that everything he knows, Hannibal knows, too. The abyss does gaze back (the darkness, the depth, the devil) as if through the blinds of a window through his ribs into his chest. Staring at his beating heart.

Will's eyes clench shut, but he can see Hannibal's face coveting his heart. His golden heart.

"You don't have to speak," it says, the face. "It is alright, Will. You could not say it, because your brain had recognized its own insanity. When a brain knows it is insane, would it not be best if it shut itself off? Is it not best to make the floor fall away and vanish into darkness? But those are just symbols, metaphors. Are you hiding behind words, Will?"

"No." Will can't feel anything beneath his knees; his feet seem to hang in the empty air.

"Open your eyes."

In reflex, Will squeezes them shut harder, but then dares to look. For a second he sees a black abyss beneath them, then discerns the dark swirls in the floorboards' grain standing out before the brown wood. The abyss is only their shadows, cast as a black pool beneath the overhanging light. He notices Hannibal is still holding his shoulders and now lets go to finger the collar of Will's shirt.

"You killed your dog, Will. Don't worry—we can get through this. Just repeat after me: You killed your dog."

Will swallows. A brain recognizing its own insanity. A sinkhole beneath the floor. His head a hard drive suffering total loss. He says, "You killed—I killed my dog." He waits. Nothing happens. "Nothing happened."

"No."

"Because I'm not insane."

"No. Your mind functions perfectly well. Your reality might not match with others' realities, but you should not be concerned about that. Your reality matches with mine. And in that reality you killed your dog and you let its blood soak the floorboards. You gave me permission to see it. Will you give me permission to see everything of you?"

Hannibal's fingers grasp the first button on Will's shirt, his thumb positioned to pop it like the trigger of a gun. Inclining his head, Hannibal searches for Will's eyes.

"What do you want?" Will mumbles, but the rumbling inside his chest has already told Will. The gold is starting to boil, about to spill and Will struggles in a vain attempt of keeping it beneath his skin.

"I have already told you. You are not mad, Will; by killing your dog you have planted the seeds for your mind's stability. But I have been the one to prove it. Don't you think that the one to reestablish the worth of your brain deserves the worth of your soul?"

Will's jaw clenches, he grabs Hannibal's hands and scrambles to his feet. "You have proven nothing," he gnarls, stepping over Holly's corpse with a hand pressed to his chest. His palm feels the gold's vibration behind it. He eyes Hannibal, who is still kneeling on the floor with his expensive pants drenched in blood. He looks awed, staring up at Will—pious. Forcing himself to lock eyes with him, Will bends to take between his fingers the switch of the little lamp next to the chimney. With one hand he grasps it, with the other he holds onto his chest, onto the gold boiling inside it: onto his heart. For a moment longer, he keeps their eyes interlocked, seeing in Hannibal the greed, the craving of his heart. He lets him starve. Then his fingers curl and flip the switch.

The lamp ignites in white light. It flushes their shadows and pours them against the back wall. Holly's corpse is illuminated like a statue at an exhibition, the blood in her pelt no longer looking like fur but like blood. Will closes his eyes and exhales. The lamp isn't red. This is prove: He is not mad. He is in his own home that keeps his brain sane.

"Hannibal," he murmurs. "Do you see now? I'm perfectly alright. I'm not mad. My house has a warm light burning in one of the upper windows and it's not red. Someone in a similar house may own a red lamp and that person, _that_ person has maybe given up sanity for madness, but that person is not me. Whose gold do you want, Hannibal?"

He does not answer, stares up at Will with a frown, but Will knows what he wants. Hannibal already owns it because of this trip of pleasure and monsters he has led Will along—for granting him the revelation that killing Holly, however much he loved her, happened with his brain at full capacity. It is comforting to know that murder is only yet another unfamiliar personality trait.

Hannibal gets up but before he has come close, Will says,

"You can have it. But not because you desire it so much but because I am willing to give. There is is difference, I hope you're aware."

"I am and I am eternally grateful."

Hannibal's voice is meek and painstakingly lonely. With a sigh, Will closes his eyes and lets the pendulum swing.

Time reverses in hyper-speed. Hannibal is forced back onto his knees. The light dies before Will and Hannibal leave the room in its shadow. Sitting at the table, Hannibal looks like he is about to devour his napkin, but instead feasts on Will's mouth. The fireplace reassembles itself as Will pulls the hammer from its hollow and then makes for the table to sit and absorb a gush of gold into his chest. When Hannibal brings their opulent plates back into the kitchen, the light goes out. Will shuts his eyes and feels the wetness of Holly's leaking pelt on his lap, pulls his fingers from her cuts to close them again and to collect her blood like an oil-spill, loosens his grip on her neck to let her breathe. As he hears her whimper in his hands he opens his eyes, seeing a red light glaring at his face. He jumps to his feet, then walks away from the window and takes Hannibal down to the empty plates on his old table, next belches out the food, stands with him in the kitchen. An abundant array of ingredients are constructed with Hannibal's meticulous hands. They vanish as Will removes dog food from the bowls and puts it back into the cupboard. They both stand in the middle of the room, looking at each other. Time skids to a halt.

"No need to apologize," Hannibal says. "Although we need to handle this problem carefully—I don't think it can be easily dismissed only because you feel at ease as you have entered your home. But let us talk about that later on. Dinner first."

"Oh about that…" Will is interrupted as two dogs come running around the corner by the couch. He pets them gladly. "There's nothing edible in the kitchen, but I've got something else. Wait here for a minute."

A rapturous smiles carves a gash into Hannibal's face. "Yes. Thank you," he whispers, no voice, just air.

Nodding, Will turns and vanishes in the kitchen. As he is gone, the dogs roam hungrily around Hannibal's legs, but they are ignored and left to searching for food beneath the couch and behind the cupboards. The entire time Hannibal's face remains a mask of elation, stoic and without change. As Will returns with the tableware, Hannibal casts one glance at his chest and reaches out to touch Will's shoulder. They remain silent. With the table set, Will makes another trip to the kitchen, during which Hannibal rearranges the forks and knifes and sits down at the head of the table. Will doesn't take long. When he returns, the sound of boiling liquid follows him out of the kitchen. Gold fills the indentation of the platter on which his heart, red and glistening like a ruby, sits as the centerpiece. It is still. A muscle devoid of movement. He sets the platter down in the middle of the table.

Hannibal looks at him full of awe. "That looks and smells delicious," he says.

"I sure hope so."

Will sits down, the hole in his chest gaping over the edge of the table. It doesn't look empty but inviting.

"Bon appétit," he says.


End file.
